GrandMaster Art Mason's Martial Musing

When I do Kyusho Course in my school, the novice session is 12 3 hour segments lasting a year in time. We meet once per month. My success rate with these groups getting to Black Belt is very high, but there is a reason for it. We follow certain laws that pertain to learning a new skill or any skill for that matter.

There are 4 major areas we will talk about.

1) Who to listen too. There are many people on the internet who are claiming high ranks and understanding of the art. How do you decide? Find someone who is doing the things with Kyusho you want to learn to do. That simple, but often overlooked.

2) Am I teachable? This is an important question to ask yourself. How badly on a scale of 1 to 10 do I want to learn this information and what I am will to do, change or give up to do it!

3) Technical Balance - There is a certain amount of technical skill needs to be balanced with the information processed from Kyusho Jitsu.

4) Putting it together. There are 4 knowledge states to be considered. Your goal is to the reach the forth. This takes time and much word to achieve.

a) Unconscious Incompetence- This is not knowing you don’t know something
b) Conscious Incompetence – This is know that you do not know
c) Conscious Competence – This is know that you know something
d) Unconscious Competence – This is doing something you know without thinking about it. This is the ultimate place to be in any martial art or skill.

If you apply this these skills to anything you are learning you will find great success in the field in question. Kyusho is a great example of this. If you would like to know more about learning Kyusho Jitsu visit on Kyusho Online Course Website

Last night I was happy. I had a class that was well attended by my Black Belts. With this in mind I gave them something to think about. The first thing before we began to move was to discuss the current trend in the martial arts for reality training. I have been watching and have participated in some of these trainings over the last few years. My presence has been mostly as an observer however.

The physical aspects of different martial arts technique have very similar veins running in them. There are only so many ways to strike, kick, and manipulate or throw an attacker.  The reality based systems work on simple techniques which can be easily learned and muscle memory created ( approximately 3000 repetitions).

As I have watched some of the masters of these system works I have to wonder what is going on in a physiological sense. What is their blood pressure and heart rate doing during training. How much stress is being created in the body as they train and fight for a reality we all hope will never happen. They are meeting aggression with aggression.

We then set our to do our training. Our self defense training requires a live attack and response. There are certainly restrictions placed on the attacker, but this is only for the purpose of training in the 3 ways of attack (Push Grab Punch). In this case we were punching. I told the students to imagine doing this at a testing, this will help to increase the anxiety level a small amount. I told them to carefully watch and judge how they did. Success or failure and how often.

Next we sat in a meditation on breath for several minutes. A breathing to calm the mind. We resumed the training. With the calmer mind the students were faster and much more successful in their movement.  Now one of the things I teach in self defense is to disconnect from the attacker on a mental level. You cannot take the attack personally and become emotionally involved with it. We train physically based on rules. If you apply rules to the situation and not to the attacker you will be successful. Remember the pilot who landed his plane in the Hudson River? He did this by remaining calm in the face of death and following the rules that he was taught. No different here.

The improvement in movement was at east two fold. I demonstrated some movement for them. I asked my attacker (Uki)  what it was that he was seeing. He told me he was focused (as in real life) on the object of his attack, in this case my head. I asked the students what I was looking at. Most replied ‘the attackers eyes’. Next was the question what the ‘observers’ were watching.  Several answers, the correct answer was my feet. Students tend to focus on the instructors hands. When they do they miss a lot.

What was my (defenders) focus on? Nothing and everything. Seeing without looking. This is sometimescalled soft vision. When everything is see almost like periferal vision.  From here my  movement only comes when attack is started. There are no coutesty warnings or Kia’s. Full out attack. The movement of no mind is effortless, it just happens.

My students began to work on it. It takes time because the harder you try the poorer the results.

There must be a starting point for everyone that decides to become involved with martial arts training.  Formally we call this white belt, but it lasts much longer than this.  This beginning is based on movement and technique.

As you first begin your training you learn many, many different technique. Sometimes I think as a teacher I am teaching far to many of these. What is really needed is learning how to move. We have all learned and practiced technqies that work on some, then not at all on others. Yet the master seems to be able to always make them work. This can be very frustrating. Depending on the student sometimes I will tell them what is going on, other times I leave it to them to think about.

One thing the student tends to do when a technique is going bad is revert to using force or power to try to finish it. The problem with this is that you are now fully committed to the movement, and there is no way out.  What is needed is continuous motion.

The concept is simple, application is more challenging.

The student will often ask at this point “what about stances?” Stances are transitional points, not finishing events.  Continuous movement, through the varying stances for the particular application will yield a great result. The body cannot defend against such movements.

Students watch your instructor carefully over the next few months. See exactly what he or she is doing to make things work. Martial Art is about movement, and movement will make you successful.